Congratulations to Mr. Jay Estes -  President of Peoples State Bank!

He is the WINNER of a new Apple iPAD from the Percento Technologies drawing at the IBAT Conference in Fort Worth this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who joined our drawing.

Percento Technologies – Experts – Managing IT for banks and credit untions since 1999.

Years after it ran afoul of online influencers who coined the term ‘Dell Hell’, the PC maker Dell says it has learned from its mistakes and is looking to pioneer a new brand of online engagement with consumers.

The Independent Bankers Association of Texas was organized in 1974 “…to promote the interests of independent banking in areas vital to independent banks.” Today, IBAT continues to be a pioneer in providing products and services to its member banks. IBAT is a trade association representing more than 2,000 Texas community banks and branches. Our members enjoy a wide variety of membership services directed by some 150 volunteer leaders and an experienced, dedicated, and responsive staff with a combined experience of over 225 years of service to the banking industry.

Percento Technologies is supporter and sponsor of this week’s IBAT event in Fort Worth.  We are giving away an iPAD, so if you are attending please stop by our booth.

Percento Technologies – IT Support!

SAN FRANCISCO–After years of pitching the developing world and educational institutions on the notion of shared PCs, NComputing is ready to make a more serious push to U.S. businesses.

The company’s technology lets a single PC or server provide a desktop computing experience to 10 or more individual thin-client terminals, each hooked up to their own keyboard and mouse and an inexpensive piece of hardware from NComputing, about the size of a home router. By being able to significantly cut costs, the company has racked up a number of large deals in recent years, becoming one of the leading providers of thin clients.

“The key is the technology works,” says Stephen Dukker, the former eMachines CEO who runs NComputing. “It’s ready for prime time.”

Although the company has become known for its work with schools overseas, Dukker said it is a misnomer to think of NComputing as a company focused on education. It was just a natural place to start given the high focus on costs and the existence of relatively more lenient software licensing rules that make it easier to set up such installations.

The company won’t say what its revenue is, but the company says that it is selling more than a million shared computing “seats” each year and now has about 200 employees, up from around 160 a year ago.

As NComputing goes after the business market–the most lucrative segment for the PC and software industries–things will undoubtedly get a little thornier. In some cases, businesses can just pay a per-user fee for the software they need and still benefit from the lower hardware costs.

Beyond that, there are social barriers that are likely to slow business adoption. First of all, companies don’t want to send the message–and workers don’t want to get the message–that they aren’t valuable enough to have their own PC. Second of all, companies like solutions that can easily be managed with their existing tools. Finally, thin computing has long been touted, but has also historically not been able to deliver the goods.

“Its one of those things that have been tried many times and failed many times,” said Redmonk analyst Michael Cote. “The most encouraging thing (now) is everything is faster.”

Even a few years ago, Cote said, PCs didn’t have enough spare capacity to handle multiple loads for the average business worker. While that may still be true for those doing video editing and other high-demand tasks, your average PC these days can handle multiple sessions of Web browsing, e-mail reading, and note taking.

Dukker insists that, while challenging, the enterprise is a nut his company is ready to crack.

“We have large enterprise attachment worldwide,” Dukker said. “You’ll be hearing more about this.”

While sales to businesses now total 35 percent of the company’s business, the big shift is that 15 of those percentage points are now sales in developed countries such as the United States.

In India, NComputing has a huge installation with India’s Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), an organization that runs both hospitals and health insurance in that country.

Here in the U.S., NComputing has racked up a few early business customers including Big O Tires, Michigan-based BLD Systems, and paper giant Weyerhauser, which is using NComputing in seven of its mills.

With Big O Tires, the company has about 9,000 NComputing workstations in about 600 franchised locations across the country. Each store has 10 to 30 workstations running off two desktop-size computers. Some key business apps run remotely from the company’s data center, while things like Office and Web browsing are handled locally from the shared PCs.

Dukker said that, from its inception, NComputing has had its eye on the business market, but said it wanted to start with the easier sell. “It always takes three to four years for a disruptor like us to get credibility,” he said.

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A piece of highly sophisticated malicious software that has infected an unknown number of power plants, pipelines and factories over the past year is the first program designed to cause serious damage in the physical world, security experts are warning.

The Stuxnet computer worm spreads through previously unknown holes in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and then looks for a type of software made by Siemens and used to control industrial components, including valves and brakes.

Stuxnet can hide itself, wait for certain conditions and give new orders to the components that reverse what they would normally do, the experts said. The commands are so specific that they appear aimed at an industrial sector, but officials do not know which one or what the affected equipment would do.

While cyber attacks on computer networks have slowed or stopped communication in countries such as Estonia and Georgia, Stuxnet is the first aimed at physical destruction and it heralds a new era in cyberwar.

At a closed-door conference this week in Maryland, Ralph Langner, a German industrial controls safety expert, said Stuxnet might be targeting not a sector but perhaps only one plant, and he speculated that it could be a controversial nuclear facility in Iran.

According to Symantec, which has been investigating the virus and plans to publish details of the rogue commands on Wednesday, Iran has had far more infections than any other country.

“It is not speculation that this is the first directed cyber weapon”, or one aimed at a specific real-world process, said Joe Weiss, a US expert who has testified to Congress on technological security threats to the electric grid and other physical operations. “The only speculation is what it is being used against, and by whom.”

Experts say Stuxnet’s knowledge of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the Siemens program and the associated hardware of the target industry make it the work of a well-financed, highly organised team.

They suggest that it is most likely associated with a national government and that terrorism, ideological motivation or even extortion cannot be ruled out.

Stuxnet began spreading more than a year ago but research has been slow because of the complexity of the software and the difficulty in getting the right industry officials talking to the right security experts.

Microsoft has patched the vulnerabilities in Windows but experts remain concerned because of the worm’s ability to hind once it is in a system.

Experts have only begun publishing more of their analyses in the last few weeks, hoping that such steps will get more answers from private companies and government leaders.

Siemens said that since July 15, when it first learnt about Stuxnet, 15 of its customers had reported being infected by the worm. The company would not name the customers but said that five were in Germany and the rest were spread around the world. Siemens said critical infrastructure had not been affected by the virus and in each case the worm had been removed.

The German conglomerate said it had offered its customers a fix for the virus and that since the Stuxnet virus was detected, there had been 12,000 downloads of its anti-virus software.

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The Federal Communications Commission today unanimously approved new rules for the use of unlicensed white space spectrum in a move that could pave the way for more unused wireless spectrum to be released in the future.

White space is unused spectrum that sits between TV channels. The 300MHz to 400MHz of unused spectrum is considered prime spectrum for offering wireless broadband services because it can travel long distances and penetrate through walls. The FCC unanimously agreed in November 2008 to open up this spectrum for unlicensed use. Even so, technical issues to allow device makers and service providers to use the spectrum still need to be worked out.

Americans are concerned that, in today’s technological age, we may have become too dependent on electronic devices such ascomputers and calculators.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 70% of adults are concerned that Americans have become too dependent on electronic devices, with 41% who are Very Concerned. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are not worried, but that includes just four percent (4%) who are Not At All Concerned about our dependence on these devices.

It has been estimated that roughly 20% of Americans use smartphones and 80% own a computer. However, just 26% of Americans admit that they spend too much time using the Internet, computers and mobile communications devices. This is roughly the same as in late January. Sixty-nine percent (69%) say they do not spend too much time using such technology.

But 75% of adults said at that time that young children spend too much time on computers and other electronic devices.

Adults under 50 are more likely to say they overuse technology than those who are older.

Adults with children at home and higher-income adults are also more likely to feel they spend too much time using the Internet and other related technologies.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on September 15-16, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Americans say they still own a print version of the dictionary, but when it comes to travel and leisure, most adults tend to go online.

Just 26% say that when they go somewhere, they use a map for directions. Thirty-seven percent (37%) go online to sites like MapQuest.com or Google Maps to find directions, while 31% use an electronic Global Positioning System (GPS) in their vehicle.

When Americans go to the movies or go out to eat, 46% turn to the Internet for information like movie listings or reservations. Twenty-eight percent (28%) look in the local newspaper, while 13% call for information.

While newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age,two-out-of-three Americans (67%) feel they are more informed today than they were 10 years ago. Just eight percent (8%) consider themselves less informed these days, while 22% think their level of knowledge is about the same.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering several ways to help the struggling newspaper industry, but Americans strongly reject several proposed taxes to keep privately-owned newspapers going. But 84% oppose a three-percent (3%) tax on monthly cell phone bills to help newspapers and traditional journalism.

Automakers are getting in on the computer craze as well. For the driver already juggling a cell phone and a burger as he’s heading down the highway, it’s the next big thing: An Internet-connected dashboard computer. The perfect front-seat addition, eh? Not according to 87% of Americans. That’s the number who oppose allowing people to use an Internet-connected computer while they are driving.

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Microsoft has begun adding public-transportation directions to its Bing Maps service, with directions available initially in 11 metropolitan areas in North America.

“Transit options are available for bus, subway, light rail, and local rail,” Brian Hendricks, an associate product manager for Bing Maps, said in a blog post yesterday.

The areas covered in the initial release are Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Vancouver.

The addition helps the service match a feature available already in Google Maps, Bing Maps’ primary rival. Online mapping is increasing in importance, not just as a way for people to figure out how to get from one place to another, but also as a way for online mapping companies to profit through locally relevant advertising.

And with mobile devices increasing in importance and capability, online maps are becoming useful for navigating while en route, not just in advance.

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Microsoft may have a tough time building significant market share for its new Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser because eligible users are in the minority.

Several analysts agreed that Microsoft has its work cut out for it, at least in the short term, because IE9 won’t run on Windows XP, the aged-but-still-dominant operating system.

Microsoft omitted the still-popular XP from the supported OS list because, among other things, IE 9 speeds up page rendering and composition by tapping the graphics processor in newer PCs. Windows XP lacks support for the Direct2D API, which IE9 uses to accelerate content rendering.

The decision means that only a subset of machines will be able to run IE9, either in its preview or final form, until those systems and Windows XP are replaced by new hardware and Windows 7.

“That’s an issue in terms of growth, at least for the next 12 to 18 months as more companies and consumers migrate to Windows 7,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC. For that reason and others, Hilwa said not to expect a “tidal wave change in browser share. Microsoft’s battle is not to lose much more share.”

Worldwide, Windows XP PCs outnumber all other Windows-equipped machines by two to one, according to the most recent statistics from Web metrics company Net Applications.

In August, Windows XP powered 66.7% of the globe’s Windows systems that went online in the month, while the three-year-old Vista accounted for 15.3% and 2009′s Windows 7 for 17.4%.

Older versions of Windows, including Windows 2000, Windows 98 and Windows Millennium, made up the small remainder.

Even in the U.S., where Windows XP has a smaller slice of the Windows pie, the aging operating system remains in the majority. But its margin is much narrower. Here, Windows XP ran on 52.1% of all Windows PCs used to browse the Web last month, while Vista accounted for 27% and Windows 7 for 20.8%.

Windows’ total share in the U.S. is significantly lower than its global share — 83.5% for the U.S., 91.3% worldwide — in part because Apple’s Mac OS X is more popular in the United States than in most other countries. Net Applications, for example, pegged Mac OS X with a global share of 5% in August, but a U.S. share of 11.2%.

Other experts agreed with Hilwa that leaving out Windows XP is a problem for Microsoft’s IE9 plans.

“This is a major shortcoming of the IE9 strategy,” said Ray Valdes of Gartner in an interview Wednesday after the launch of the browser’s beta. “And it’s an opportunity for competitors to continue to chip away from IE’s share.”

Al Gillen, a colleague of Hilwa’s at IDC seconded that. “The short term potential for IE9 is limited,” Gillen said, noting that the new browser’s numbers should pick up when Microsoft eventually offers it to Vista and Windows 7 users via Windows Update.

Microsoft has not set a final release for IE9, and Wednesday again declined to put a firm date on the final. Speculation has centered on an April 2011 release, which would coincide with MIX, the company’s annual Web conference that’s scheduled to run April 12-14, 2011, in Las Vegas.

Browser rivals have used IE9′s no-XP policy as marketing ammunition. New versions from Mozilla and Google, for example, are to land later this year with limited hardware acceleration under XP.

“Firefox accelerates for Windows XP users too, something Microsoft says they can’t do,” said Aza Dotzler, Mozilla’s lead technology evangelist, last week. “If Mozilla can accelerate browsing for the hundreds of millions of PC users on Microsoft’s Windows XP, why can’t Microsoft?”

Chrome will also feature partial hardware acceleration for Windows XP with version 7, which should be in users’ hands in two months or less.

IE8, which debuted in March 2009 and currently has a 31.4% share, will be the most modern Microsoft browser available to Windows XP users through the operating system’s support cut-off in April 2014.

Net Applications measures operating system usage share by mining data acquired from the 160 million unique visitors who browse the 40,000 Web sites it monitors for clients.

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Adobe Systems released a preview version of its widely used Flash Player plug-in that catches up to newer trends in Web browser development: 64-bit designs and support for the newly Internet Explorer 9 beta.

The new Flash beta, code-named Square, is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, siad Adobe’s Paul Betlem in a blog post today. The download is on Adobe Labs; note that if you install Square, you’ll have to manually update it on your own.

The move isn’t a big surprise–in June, the Adobe said 64-bit Flash is a “top priority”–but it will mean a major transition for Web developers. And it’s important in Adobe’s effort to maintain Flash’s incumbent power in light of new Web standards that offer many Flash abilities without a browser plug-in.

The computing industry is in the midst of a gradual transition to 64-bit computing that started years ago with processors, moved through the operating system, and now is arriving with mainstream programs. Although 32-bit software runs on 64-bit operating systems, you generally can’t get a 32-bit plug-in to run in a 64-bit browser.

That hasn’t been a huge problem, given that the main advantage of 64-bit computing is access to more than 4GB of memory and browsers rarely need anything like that much. But JavaScript performance can improve notably on 64-bit machines, browsers are making the jump, and Adobe took heat earlier this year when it withdrew a test version of 64-bit Flash for Linux originally released in 2008.

Along with 64-bit support, the new version taps into a computer’s graphics chip power, at least when used on the new IE9 beta. Hardware acceleration is all the rage among browser makers, speeding up everything from graphics to text in various cases. Here’s Betlem’s sales pitch:

As part of our collaboration with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team over the past few months, Flash Player “Square” has been enhanced to directly support the hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities in the newest version of IE. Flash Player “Square” leverages the new GPU support available with Internet Explorer 9 Beta to deliver a faster and more responsive user experience with Flash-based content. In our internal testing, we’ve seen significant improvements in Flash Player graphics performance–exceeding 35 percent in Internet Explorer 9 Beta compared to Flash Player running in previous versions of IE.

What’s not clear at this stage is how well the new version will deal with hardware acceleration on Mac OS X. Adobe has been trying to address complaints–including very public ones from Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs–that Flash is a CPU hog.

Graphics acceleration also has the potential to help with Adobe’s ambition to spread Flash from personal computers, where it’s common, to mobile devices, where it’s almost unknown today.

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